Twenty Things about Yoshikuni and Akihiro
by Tabi
Summary: Written for the now-dead seirei 20things. When the teaching staff grew exhausted of trying and failing to contain and control that Jinguuji, they passed him over to the Student Council...


~_Twenty Ways That Wada Yoshikuni and Jinguuji Akihiro Grew Inexplicably Close_~

**01:** When the teaching staff grew exhausted of trying and failing to contain and control that Jinguuji, they passed him over to the Student Council. Akihiro was rebellious enough to try the patience of anybody who'd try to bind him up in rules and regulations, but Yoshikuni didn't mind. Most children are happy to be given a new toy to play with.

**02:** Akihiro spent so much time at the Student Council Building for his misdemeanours, Yoshikuni started to grow fond of his presence and found the place felt rather empty without him. He was part of the furniture like the main meeting table, or a potted plant.

**03:** Aihara was obedient to a fault, Keigo knew how to switch off entirely at any given moment, Takumu was too unpleasant and volatile to deal with most of the time. As enjoyable as it was to drive someone to their limit and break them beyond it, more entertaining were those who seemed unbreakable. When he wasn't admiring Akihiro's strength and stamina, Yoshikuni quite enjoyed devising new ways to push him further.

**04:** After that nasty business with Takumu, Keigo remained loyal to Yoshikuni. Yoshikuni didn't realise how much he'd been taking that loyalty for granted until Keigo admitted his feelings for Akihiro on the night of the Student Council concert. Both Yoshikuni and Keigo knew little would sway Akihiro's feelings away from Nishimura but Yoshikuni couldn't help but feel betrayed despite himself. The look on Keigo's face when Yoshikuni made Akihiro fuck him partially made up for this, however.

**05:** Sometimes it was refreshing for someone to not entirely be at your beck and call. Yoshikuni said that Akihiro could have made it on the Student Council, but Akihiro quickly dismissed the idea.

"_Kudou's only as powerful as he is with the backing of the Student Council. It doesn't have to stay like that... I'm sure you'd make a fine replacement._"

Yoshikuni knew Akihiro resented Tatsuya's attentions towards Shin and held his own agenda to hurt Kazuya for stealing Takumu's affection, but Akihiro still refused.

**06:** The school rules stated that hairdye was one of those fringe rules - generally frowned upon, though the smallprint said it was okay as long as the colour was one found in nature. Yoshikuni argued the point with Akihiro, telling him to stop using it. He wasn't sure Akihiro would, he just wanted to see if he'd obey.

His hair grew out to its natural red over the course of time after that. Yoshikuni knew the matter only one of personal preference but, in the end, told Akihiro it was alright to dye his hair again.

**07:** Degradation and humiliation aside, Yoshikuni was a valuable ally for as long as you were in his favour. Once he got in to university, Akihiro would freely thank Keigo for pulling the strings in his favour. However, both of them knew Keigo's efforts would have been pointless had Yoshikuni not approved them in the first place.

**08:** Despite it being a perfectly legitimate case of domestic abuse, one of Akihiro's greatest fears was that people would know what his mother did to him and laugh at him about it. Yoshikuni knew what Akihiro's mother did; he didn't comfort Akihiro for it but he didn't laugh at him, either.

**09:** Akihiro hated what Yoshikuni did with Shin but even had to revoke that opinion once Yoshikuni was on his side. Shin was also one of Yoshikuni's regular companions and, provided Yoshikuni was in the right kind of mood, it didn't take anything to persuade him into inviting Shin over for a little playtime. Shin never refused Yoshikuni and was unperturbed to find Akihiro there also. Akihiro wanted to hate Shin's blasé acceptance of it all, but found that outweighed by the presented opportunity.

**10:** Akihiro seemed to be the only one, after Takumu, with the courage to fuck Yoshikuni. The others were too yielding, too submissive. Keigo would have done had Yoshikuni asked it, but he lacked the angry and forceful nature Yoshikuni so admired of Akihiro. Sometimes, you just wanted to be fucked.

**11:** Yoshikuni liked to treat his pets. When he asked Akihiro what he wanted most for Christmas regardless of rarity of monetary value, Akihiro replied "_Nishimura's unswerving loyalty and devotion_" and Yoshikuni couldn't give something like that, but Akihiro _did_ get that iPod he'd been hankering after.

**12:** Akihiro was rarely enthusiastic about anything, but Synchro's music was one of these few things. Yoshikuni was open in his dislike and wouldn't listen to Synchro on principle until he'd heard Akihiro wax lyrical on the matter for an afternoon. He gained some new favourite songs after that.

**13:** Hating how vulnerable he'd made himself to Takumu and how pained he'd felt at Keigo's 'betrayal', Yoshikuni came to love his lack of feeling towards Akihiro (and hated himself for that fondness, too). Without love, there wouldn't be the pain of rejection. Yoshikuni knew that Akihiro hated him; that was fine.

**14:** Yoshikuni was surprised to find himself seeking Akihiro's company after school and in the holidays. The older boy was blunt and rough but had a dry wit and sarcastic sense of humour that Yoshikuni found himself enjoying. It felt refreshing to have a conversation partner who wasn't glowing with awe, cowering with fear or constantly trying to curry favour.

**15:** When Ouran's Host Club requested audience with Seirei's Student Council, many were shocked by Yoshikuni's choice of Akihiro as his representative. Some, such as Keigo, were quite unsurprised. Yoshikuni could be selfish in some respects but he was always eager to show off a well-groomed pet, especially to those rich Ouran bastards.

**16:** Akihiro was at Ouran for a week. He hadn't realised just how subservient he'd become until that week in the control of people who weren't Yoshikuni. On his return, Akihiro raced to the Student Council building and grappled Yoshikuni to the floor, holding him so tight it was almost as if he were afraid to let go. Akihiro had returned along with a glowing report from Ouran, that Ootori even stating some wry kind of envy that Yoshikuni would be in possession of such a specimen. Yoshikuni delighted in any victory made against Kyouya; he returned Akihiro's embrace.

**17:** Keigo confessed feeling for Akihiro but really, Akihiro knew that Keigo's true feeling lay with Yoshikuni. They all seemed stuck in the situation; Yoshikuni couldn't seem to forget Takumu and Akihiro couldn't give up Shin for anything and he felt sorry for Keigo, being trapped between two such unreachable aims. Yoshikuni valued Keigo's services and Akihiro saw him as an irreplaceable best friend, but after all of Yoshikuni's involvement felt keenly protective of someone he thought of as a _friend_ and nothing else. He also couldn't help but think that perhaps, maybe, Keigo would be _good_ for Yoshikuni. Keigo was nothing if not patient, after all.

The aim was to push Keigo towards Yoshikuni and try perhaps to make the latter open to this suggestion, but every comment fell dead in Akihiro's throat. He didn't know why.

**18:** "_The caged bird sings sweetest,_" Yoshikuni said. Akihiro didn't know what he meant.

"_When their wings are clipped, they only want the sky._"

Then, one evening, "_Isn't the true quality of beauty in its destruction? Like the moon and the sun, like light and dark. Perhaps._"

Akihiro had found Shin in the basement and for the first time in recent memory had wondered just what the hell Yoshikuni was _really_ capable of to have rendered Shin so. Bringing him up from the basement, Shin clung to Akihiro like there was nothing else for him, and in that state of mind perhaps there wasn't. Akihiro took Shin back to his house, held him, listened to him cry. Was this bird tamed or broken? Akihiro hated Yoshikuni with a force that scared him.

"_Don't leave me..._"

Shin's eyes had been so vulnerable. Yoshikuni had done this. Akihiro wanted to hate Yoshikuni but couldn't, not _really_. That was what scared him most.

**19:** Akihiro didn't like to feel helpless. In his practice, there was always something you could do in a situation - even if that meant violence, that was still asserting some kind of power and he rather believed in that principle. If you couldn't believe in your fists, what was there left to believe in?

He walked into Yoshikuni's study that time without thinking; the door had been undone and the lights were off. For a full moment Akihiro thought Yoshikuni absent but for seeing him sitting at his desk, head in his hands. Akihiro thought he was crying, at first. He wasn't crying but he was frozen there shaking, trembling and letting out an occasional sob that didn't originate from tears. Akihiro had approached; stress? Panic? Anxiety? He didn't know. The framed photo of Takumu lay shattered across the desk. Akihiro reached for Yoshikuni's shoulder but didn't touch him, wanted to speak but didn't, wanted to do something but left, instead. There wasn't anything to be done about it but it hadn't been until that moment that Akihiro had wished that there were.

**20:** One time stood out as being different from the others. Perhaps he was too angry or for once, not angry enough, but that time between them had been soft, slow, gentle. Frightening, almost. Knowing what Yoshikuni was capable of left the encounter in Akihiro's mind like toying with the tiger with bloodstained hands; it was too far removed to be forgotten and too addicting to be comfortable. It had been Yoshikuni's fault. Teasing like that. Wanting something Akihiro was scared to give.

"_How would you like to treat Nishimura?_"

Like that. Akihiro's heart hurt before, during and after. It could be like that. It _could_ be like that. Yoshikuni's expression said that Akihiro wasn't the one on his mind. They were silent afterward, Yoshikuni only managing to haltingly get the words out. "_I... liked that._"

_That wasn't yours to like_, Akihiro had wanted to say. Instead, he didn't say anything.


End file.
